


animals trapped (the cage is full)

by liginamite



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Established Relationship, Frottage, M/M, Porn, kink meme fills, touch starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:55:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liginamite/pseuds/liginamite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because that's the problem, isn't it? The world doesn’t have time for affection, for intimacy, for anything more than quickly coming and cleaning off and heading back to work like nothing ever happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	animals trapped (the cage is full)

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you build up to the porn, and then sometimes you just dive right in. i went for the latter. my laptop's gone kaput so this was my distraction. :Db

If anyone asks, the door is locked because scientists need to _think_.

-

“C’mon,” Newt’s breathing, he’s got Hermann’s good leg between his and he’s rutting against it hard enough to clatter the chalkboard behind them against the wall. He’s close, so close, sweat slipping down the rivets of his back and Hermann’s throat at his lips. Hermann tastes like powder and sweat and when he moans it reverberates through Newt’s teeth like a note. “C’mon, c’mon, like that. Yes. Keep moving, _ah_ , fuck.”

“I thought that was the point,” Hermann huffs out, and his voice has gone all gritty like it used to when they had _time_ for more than just thoughtlessly humping against whatever surface was readily available and not covered in entrails. Newt nearly moans at it and his fingers twitch where they’re grasping at Hermann’s shoulders. “That we couldn’t anymore.”

“Oh shut up, Hermann, you think you’re so, ah, so clever, you, fuck,” Newt’s hips jerk, hard, and Hermann sucks in a sharp breath, fingers scrabbling to pull Newt closer. He’s shuddering, and Newt has the sudden desperate urge to unbutton that stupid Oxford and suck a bruise into the soft skin he finds there. He’s well-acquainted with the dip of Hermann’s collarbone but it’s been so long since he’s actually been able to _see_ it, he feels like an alcoholic outside a locked bar.

Hermann moves his leg, presses it hard against Newt’s crotch and he whines. “Shit, like that.” His voice is rough, and Hermann complies, oddly quiet, tugging at him until Newt’s practically riding his leg, still pressing him up against the chalkboard.

Because that’s the problem, isn’t it, the fact that Hermann’s equations are starting to come together, that attacks are getting more frequent, that the world doesn’t have time for affection, for intimacy, for anything more than quickly coming and cleaning off and heading back to work like nothing ever happened. 

Hermann huffs again, and it’s breathless, needy almost, his mouth open against Newt’s ear as he pushes his hips in a quivering, pained rhythm, searching for friction. There’s still chalk on his fingers and his cuffs and even a smudge across his nose and it’s cute, it’s something too close and personal for mere colleagues, something that Newt’s going to cherish for the rest of his goddamn life. His hands stumble, one reaching down, finding where it’s hot and hard and he can’t even _touch_ , he has to palm at Hermann’s crotch like a goddamn teenager in the school bathrooms. 

The noise that Hermann makes reminds him of drunken nights at MIT, the light thud of a head hitting a chalkboard, the gentle puff of dust that results. He reaches down with his other hand where Hermann’s layers have all rucked up, finds the shirt still tucked into his trousers and tugs it out. He finds blessed _skin_ , something more than tweed and cotton and wool and spreads his fingers wide against it, warmth seeping into each digit until he digs his nails in, licks at the bead of sweat slipping down behind Hermann’s ear.

The startled gasp that follows almost sends him right over the edge, and he hears the scrape of Hermann’s hands against the chalkboard, and he almost giggles. Nails on a chalkboard, wasn’t that how Hermann had described his voice once? Irony. 

They’re like horny teenagers and it’s almost insulting, but they just don’t have the time. One more press of hands and hips and Newt groans, pressing himself as hard as he can against Hermann’s thigh. He comes hard, gasping wetly against the skin under his lips and rising the waves out in jerked, stunted thrusts. The noise Hermann makes in response is nothing short of debauched, high and gasping, ah, _Newton_ , and Newt feels it, the jump of his cock right before Hermann’s hips jerk against him and he comes too. The chalkboard’s legs stutter against the floor from the force, and then there’s silence save for heavy, desperate breathing.

“Fuck,” Newt says again, his hands shaking against Hermann’s back. Hermann’s panting like a racehorse, eyes closed and head tilted back, and Newt wishes once more that he could see more than what pokes out of collars and shirt sleeves again. Instead, he looks down at the wet spot on his jeans.

It feels sticky and gross, but Newt just steals some Kleenex off Hermann’s desk (even though it’s in short supply and they’re already almost out as it is) and wipes himself off, tosses the crumbled mess into the trash and washes off his hands. Hermann takes another deep breath, straightens his shirt up again, and Newt giggles to himself when he irritably tucks the tail back into his waistband. Hermann still looks ruffled, his hair mussed and cheeks still bright pink, but he looks mildly content as he carefully does his pants up again, throwing his own tissues away.

And then he sees the chalkboard.

“ _Newton,_ ” he hisses, livid, and Newt darts off to his side of the lab before Hermann can grab his cane and hobble after him. It isn’t his fault most of the new Breach equation’s dusted against the back of Hermann’s blazer again.

If anyone asks, the spare pants they finally start keeping in the lab are in case of spills. 

-

Hermann growls in his ear, and it’s half angry, half aroused, and Newt is _so fucking mad at him._ He practically bends double pushing Hermann into the desk until he’s lying back and Newt’s clamoring onto it after him because damn it all he’s tiny and it works. He rolls his hips down the same moment Hermann pushes his up and the jolt of friction nearly sends him howling because he wants to touch, he wants to fucking touch so badly but there’s no time, there’s no time, the world’s in danger and they need to save it.

“Quickly,” Hermann grits out and Newt can tell it’s a bad day, he’s been wearing his glasses all day and squinting at the chalkboard and his leg’s stiffer than usual, “quickly, Newton, I need to get back--”

“Shut _up_ , Hermann, fuck,” he snaps, and rolls his hips down again. Hermann hisses but doesn’t move to push him away, instead grabs him by the tie and pulls him closer while he’s still talking. “Shut up, shut up, you miserable _asshole_ \--”

“How _dare_ you--”

“Oh I dare, don’t you worry about _that_ , babe.” Newt ignores the scowl that crosses Hermann’s face at the endearment and instead grabs Hermann’s wrist and pulls, shoves Hermann’s hand at his own crotch until Hermann squeezes. Newt’s hard and he knows it’s obvious in jeans like this, that’s why he _wears_ them, and when he shifts he can feel Hermann’s cock pressing up against his ass.

Jesus.

Hermann keeps rubbing at him, other hand grabbing at his ass while Newt presses down, ruts in place until he thinks maybe he can get away with it, maybe he can pull his pants to his thighs and sink down--

He has to shake his head to dispel the image and Hermann inhales sharply, like he could see the image himself and then he’s surging up, grabbing Newt by the jaw and shoving at him, pulling him down. He kisses him with anger and frustration and a passion they have no way of releasing because work demands their attention, work demands their _time_ and it’s only the realization that they have five minutes before they have to deliver their reports that stops him. But he still thinks about it, thinks about the times when they were naked and sweaty and he comes with a moan, forehead crashing down onto Hermann’s shoulder.

Hermann’s already shuddering beneath him, working out the last wave of what couldn’t have been a very good orgasm, and they’re just lying there on the desk, Hermann’s legs draped over the side, Newt collapsed against him.

“Sorry,” Newt mutters into his collar, and careful hands find his hair, soothe it back a little. They’re both angry, they’re both stressed, and Newt wants so badly to _touch_ but all he has are hurried hump sessions on desks and chalkboards and 

“It’s quite all right,” Hermann says carefully, and that’s the end of that. 

-

“FUCK,” Newt shrieks at the alarms, and his head thunks against the wall several times before Hermann has to withdraw his hand from between Newt’s legs to stop him. Didn’t even get inside his pants, Newt thinks bitterly, and if he weren’t afraid of knocking him flat on his ass he would’ve shoved Hermann away. They literally don’t have time to make this work, they don’t have time to be together for even a quick moment because the world is literally ending and Newt doesn’t think he’ll ever see skin again.

Oxfords and sweater vests for the rest of his life. He hates it already.

They try again half an hour later and they’re being called down to LOCCENT for debriefing, for relocation, for whatever the fuck the Marshall needs to talk to them about.

Can’t even get in a goddamn blowjob. What’s the world coming to?

_Hell_ , his treacherous brain supplies helpfully as he reluctantly pulls away from Hermann’s (still clothed) crotch and just sits back on the floor. _Hell is what it’s coming to._

And then he giggles. Coming.

Ha.

Hermann smacks his shoulder with his cane, and Newt can see the irritation isn’t directed at him at all.

-

They’re too tired at night now, too worn down, too worked up and exhausted all at once, and Newt falling asleep before he can even get a proper hickey in. Which is okay, because Hermann does, too.

If anyone asks, it’s easier to just get up and go when they’re sharing a room then when they’re not.

-

The drift is touching, it’s touching in purest form, it’s mind and body and soul and heart, and Newt nearly dies from it. Next to him, Hermann just shudders.

\- 

“Nothing,” Hermann says quietly to the ceiling that night, that stupid, fateful night when everything changed and Newt looks over at him. His glasses, still cracked, are folded up neatly on the bedside table, there are two strips tight against the cut over his eye. It’s still red and bloody, but it doesn’t hurt, and he’s pretty sure Hermann’s doesn’t either. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” Hermann repeats, and he sounds almost… lost. It’s not a tone that Newt’s used to hearing on him, and it sends a shiver of unsettled shock down his back. “There’s nothing, really. For us to do, now, I suppose.” He huffs out a sigh, and this is the first time in ten long years of companionship that Newt finds him at a loss for words, struggling to put into words a feeling that Newt can pick out from a motley of other things tightening his own chest.

But Hermann is a stubborn man, and he doesn’t give up. Newt gives him a moment to think, which is more than he would’ve in the past. But drifting is… it’s something else, really. It’s the intimacy they speak about when they describe soulmates, or red strings of fate, weaving between continents and oceans to stretch as far as it’s able, connecting two souls in impossible ways. It’s something that exists on another plane, something no one was ever meant to see, least of all something as feeble and uncertain as humanity. And where he would’ve mocked and prattled and laughed, now he only listens. 

“We’ve spent a decade of our lives dedicating everything we know, to defeating these creatures. Everything we have ever done in these last ten years, we have done so in the effort to save humanity, we have done so that there will still be something to come back to.” He gestures vaguely. “And now there’s nothing to do.”

Newt considers this for a moment, and finally leans on his hand.

“Jeez, don’t have an existential crisis or anything, Hermann,” he finally mutters, but there’s nothing sincere about the teasing. Mostly, it’s because he understands the sentiment. He understands that suddenly, they have nothing. Their role in the war is effectively over, and if their drift is going to go into ordered silence (as Newt is sure it will; after all, two people drifting with a Kaiju isn’t going to be well-received on the heels of the war’s end), then they’ll be cast to the side as far as the public is concerned. Not by the PPDC, no, he knows that for sure. They’ll have honors and awards and commendations, but for the rest of the world, Hermann Gottlieb and Newton Geiszler will forever be emblazoned in the history books as “those two guys.”

He huffs.

“I’m not having an _existential crisis_ ,” Hermann snaps irritably. “I’m merely concerned with where our attention will turn now that our fields of expertise have, for all intents and purposes, been rendered irrelevant.”

“Bed talk, mmm, I’m feeling it. Oh, baby.” 

“Oh, enough.” Hermann looks like he’s ready to roll onto his side and keep his back to Newt for the rest of the night like a naughty child. Newt laughs, unable to keep the sound from bubbling up, and scoots closer until they’re touching. It feels wonderful, a spark of lightning and he assumes it’s remnants of the drift still swirling around in their heads. Hermann must feel it too, because he inches closer and Newt beams at him.

“You know what we could do, right,” he weedles, eyebrows raised with mischief, and as a response Hermann raises one of his own. Newt scoots closer. “Now that we have _copious_ amounts of time, as you’ve so kindly pointed out.”

“You’re insufferable,” Hermann announces, but he doesn’t move away. Instead, his hands reach up, grabbing at the tattered collar of Newt’s t-shirt. Newt goes willingly enough, and when they kiss it’s the same as it was and very, very different. Newt’s hands scuttle here and there, tugging at buttons and chasing the sparks of contact bare skin initiates. Bare skin. Jesus _Christ_ , when was the last time that happened?

His mouth finds the dip of Hermann’s collarbone before he’s fully caught up with the idea, mouthing at skin he’s been missing for _months_. He feels fingers sliding up his back, searching each bump of vertebrae and dragging the cloth with it until Newt lets it ruffle his hair and pool onto the floor next to their cot. Least he can do is return the favor, and with that thought he tugs Hermann’s shirt over his head as well, throwing it with pointed disapproval.

Hermann’s fingers find his stomach, thumbs finding where it dips soft and tracing outlines of monsters they’ll never have to see again save for memory and art. Newt shivers in the cold, focusing on the warm points of contact against his skin and leans down, presses their mouths together, spreads all ten fingers out against the expanse of skin beneath him (wiry and thin but not emaciated, no, there’s muscle, sinewy and thickest at his biceps, and it’s been so long since Newt’s been properly allowed to explore it all.)

Hermann lets out a muffled little “hmph!” like it’s surprised him, and Newt giggles.

“I think I’m high on touching,” he mutters, and nips Hermann’s lip playfully. He receives an eyeroll for his efforts, but no comment. “No, seriously, dude, touching can release endorphins that make you feel like you’re high, I think that’s literally what’s happening, I haven’t seen your skin in like thirty years--”

“We’ve only know each other for ten,” Hermann corrects and Newt scowls and tugs at his pants, pulling them down. Hermann puts up no resistance, even lifting his hips to make the process easier.

“It’s called an _exaggeration_ , Hermann, I thought you of all people would know that.”

“Oh, I’m quite familiar.” Hermann’s mouth tilts up as his fingers work at Newt’s pajama bottoms. “I work with _you_ , don’t I?”

“Oh, so clever, what a line, are you a comedy writer? Because you know this world is just _begging_ for some entertainment now that we’ve saved it.” Newt’s tirade is cut short by the sudden burst of sensation when his boxers are tugged down and Hermann’s hand wraps around his cock, sure and steady and very, very practiced. They haven’t done this in weeks, months, and Newt groans, throws his head back and revels in it. “Okay, man, no, this is your talent, this is what you were put on earth for, god bless us everyone.”

Hermann actually smiles up at him like a cat, or maybe a very mean ferret. “Odd, a minute ago I thought I wasn’t being a proper lover, I thought my talk was _boring you_ \--”

“Shut up and get your pants off, Hermann.”

Hermann obliges, shockingly with very little resistance, and after a few seconds of awkward struggling they’re both naked and they’re rutting like teenagers again but this time it’s different, there’s nothing in between. No clothes, no time limits, no chalkboard uncomfortably pressed up against Hermann’s back or cold concrete at Newt’s knees. Newt wants to cheer at the feeling but the noise gets caught in his throat at the sight of a blank canvas before him.

He reaches down and grabs the both of them in his hand and Hermann gasps, hard, his stomach jumping at the feeling of it. They’re both leaking precome onto Hermann’s stomach, making a mess already, and Newt runs his thumb through it, groans at the thought of all they can do with all the time that they have.

“God, I’ve thought about this,” he mutters and leans down, mouthing at Hermann’s neck until he’s shuddering, biting his lip and making odd sounds in the back of his throat. Both of Hermann’s hands are exploring his back, reaching down and kneading at the little rounded pudges on either side of his waist, thumbs digging into his hips. 

“As have I, darling,” comes the breathless response and Newt shudders again, breath puffing out of him in a startled groan. He wants every part of Hermann that he can possibly have, and with that thought he moves his mouth up, trails it, finds Hermann’s lips and pumps his hand harder, until Hermann’s thighs are shuddering, until whines are crawling up out of his own throat, and then a finger slides into him and that’s it, it’s done, he’s gone. He comes hard and loud, crying out into Hermann’s mouth and there’s the splatter of come against his fingers. Hermann follows breathlessly, the long line of his neck stretching out as he throws his head into the pillow, mouth wide and silent.

It’s kind of brilliant. 

They need a moment, a long moment, both breathing hard into each other’s skin, Newt collapsed on top of Hermann with the very real possibility that he won’t be getting up for a long time.

“I think I probably love you, I’m not sure yet but I mean, I’m pretty sure,” Newt finally says out loud, and fools around with a loose string on the comforter. “Just so you know.”

Hermann sighs, like it’s some horrible grievance to be him, like no one has ever had to deal with such a thing. But his tone is fond, warm even, and Newt feels a really dumb urge to kiss him again. Instead he just threads their fingers together and marvels at the feel. Hermann raises their hands and presses a thoughtful kiss to Newt’s ring finger.

“I know, Newton.”

They’re late to the celebrations the next day, and if anyone asks, well. It’s simply none of their business.

**Author's Note:**

> written for [this prompt](http://pacificrimkink.livejournal.com/1613.html?thread=2744141#t2744141) at the kink meme: 
> 
> "Now that the end of the world is drawing nearer, they just don't have time to drag out a leisurely midday fuck anymore. Newt can't count the number of times that he and Hermann have urgently rubbed themselves off against each other's legs, before coming in their pants and getting on with work."
> 
> title is from regina spektor's "you've got time"


End file.
